Heartbeat
by quiet-little-wallflower
Summary: a one-shot about the turning point in Cato and Clove's 'relationship' and the connection that moment has with her eventual death. written for the starvation monthly one-shot challenge.


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She had never slept in another person's room before, had never had to share a bed with another. Though she'd been to Cato's house many times before, sometimes even late into the night she'd always made a point of going home to sleep in her own bed, no matter how awful and uncomfortable that bed was. She didn't want to fall asleep with him. That would mean that it actually meant something, that it wasn't just this physical game of pleasure and pain. She didn't want it to have any meaning at all.

But her she was, lying entwined in his sheets with her head resting on his bare chest, her clothes scattered on the floor and his arm wrapped tightly around her shoulder, pulling her close. She wasn't quite sure how it had happened, she'd had every intention of crawling out of the bed, pulling her clothes back on and disappearing out the window like a ghost, just like she had every other night, smirking as he said a cocky good night. But for some reason when they were done, when he rolled away from her and ran a hand through his hair with his eyes closed, just like he did every time when it was over, she hadn't wanted to go. She'd wanted to watch him, just for a bit. No, watch him wasn't the right word. She wanted to look at him.

She watched his chest rise and fall rapidly beneath the sheets before it found a more steady pace. She watched the barely visible mark her teeth had made on his shoulder disappear. She could even make out the pulse on his neck, making his skin bounce up and twitch to it's own little rhythm. She'd watched that rhythm and counted its beats until she couldn't see it anymore, until his body finally found its natural melody again.

"Don't you normally disappear around about now?" he'd asked her and she'd been shocked to find herself still there. He was right, she usually would have been halfway down his street by now, making a hasty escape to avoid any awkwardness that might have lingered after. But for some reason She'd stayed.

"Do you want me to go?" She'd asked, suddenly insecure, suddenly feeling like she'd crossed the line. He'd rolled back over towards her and she couldn't read that expression on his face, set like stone, just like always.

"No."

It was all he'd said, just that one word, but It changed everything. He could have, no he should have said yes. She would have laughed, pulled on her clothes and left and nothing would have changed, everything would have stayed the same. Simple, easy, no complications. But he'd said no, so she had stayed.

He'd probably been asleep for a whole ten minutes when she first began seriously contemplating what it all meant, but by the time she'd begun to truly dissect it she was already drifting off to sleep. It was his heartbeat that was causing her mind to draw a blank, making her drowsy. Her head was resting right above it and she could hear each thumping beat, just like she could see his pulse drumming away in the side of his neck only moments before. It was constant, steady and always on time.

At her own home when she tried to sleep there were so many noises in the background keeping her on edge, so many noises forcing her eyes to snap back open during the same second they'd closed. There were the loud noises; her parent's screaming, the sound of a fist hitting flesh, a plate smashing against a wall. Then there were the quieter noises; a cat's feet padding through the hallway, her mother's quiet sobs creeping in through the bedroom wall. Night at her home was anything but peaceful. Not like at Cato's. In his house there was no noise at all. The only thing she could hear was his heart lulling her to sleep with its steady beat.

It became something of a ritual after that. Eventually she found she couldn't sleep without it. She was always out of his house before the sun rose, always back to her own home before her family even knew she'd been gone. Every night from that night onward Clove found a way to fall asleep in his arms and the two of them tried their very best not to think about what it all meant.

* * *

She'd never felt anything quite like what she felt when Thresh brought the rock down hard against the side of her head. It had sent a furious burst of pain through her whole body, right down to her toes. The whole world went white for the shortest moment and she was sure she'd died. Then the white had faded back to reality, her eyes readjusting to the harsh sunlight. There was no joy in this extra burst of life she'd been given. The pain didn't go away, it stayed like a festering disease long after the girl from 12 and the boy from 11 disappeared from her sight. She had no idea how long they'd been gone before she heard Cato's voice calling to her from somewhere across the field, but it had felt like an eternity.

He'd dropped down beside her and pulled her up towards his face, and even though her vision was blurry she could tell that his face was all crumpled around itself, not set in stone like it should be. She didn't want to see him like that. He was brutal, he was vicious. He didn't kneel beside a dying girl and beg her not to die, no matter what the history was between them. He just wasn't like that at all.

And then suddenly he told her he loved her.

He was breaking her heart as she lay there dying in his arms. He wasn't meant to love her, and she wasn't ever meant to love him. But they'd crossed that line when she'd fallen asleep with her head over his heart and now they were both suffering for it. He should have told her to go when she'd asked him, but he'd fallen into that awful trap that love is and now he was going to have to pay for it. Sure they'd both ignored the growing affection between them, tried their best to keep some kind of emotional barrier. But with those three words he'd just proven that all that had meant absolutely nothing, that they'd been lying to themselves all along. He'd finally said the three words the two of them had denied for so long and he'd said them too late.

though she could hardly bring herself to believe it she found herself wanting to say it back, but the world was disappearing from her view. All that white was creeping in around the edges, framing the brute of a boy's face above her. She didn't want to go. For the first time since she was a little girl Clove was afraid. For the first time in a long time she remembered that she really wasn't ready to die, not for her country, not for her district, not for anybody. She wanted to stay alive and more than anything she realized she wanted to stay with him.

It was too late for that of course.

With the last ounce of her strength she pushed her hand up against his chest, pressed it flat against the fabric of his shirt. His heartbeat wasn't quick moving like it had been when she'd watched the blood pump through his veins; it wasn't relaxed and on cue like it had been when she'd fallen asleep to its song with her head pressed against his chest. It was erratic and out of time, each sobbing breath changing its tempo. That was ok though, it was still the same basic beat that had become her lullaby, and that was all that really mattered. It was all she needed to go to sleep, and that's what death was right?

She couldn't see anymore, couldn't even make out the outline of his face. The world was fading back into that whiteness and slowly all the noise was disappearing alongside it. The birds in the trees at the edge of the clearing, the grass brushing against her shoulder as the wind whistled through it, Cato's pleading sobs; she couldn't hear any of it. All that was left was the feeling of his pain stricken heart beat, drumming away against her hand.

For the very last time, Cato's heart lulled Clove to sleep.

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A.N- ok, this was just a little something I figured I'd write for the Starvation one-shot challenge. I thought about writing one with an actual lullaby reference in relation to Prim or Rue, but in the end I decided to go along the more abstract route and in doing so ended up writing it about Cato and Clove. The first half and the second half were initially drafts from two separate one shots I had floating around in my computer (the second half being part of a sort of companion piece to my story 'Brutal Broken Cato') so I'm really hoping I managed to do a good job of stitching the two stories together to make one.

anyway, thanks for taking the time to read all the way down to the authors note, means a lot! :)


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